Bryan Cranston first decided to be an actor just a few miles away from the University of Virginia, on the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway.

Four decades later, Cranston – now 61 and an award-winning actor best known for playing drug kingpin Walter White in the hit TV series “Breaking Bad” – will return to Virginia and take the stage Sunday at John Paul Jones Arena for the annual UVA President’s Speaker Series for the Arts. Along with “Breaking Bad” producer and UVA alumnus Mark Johnson, Cranston will discuss his career and the impact of the arts.

Recounting that long-ago epiphany in his new memoir, “A Life in Parts,” Cranston wrote of a cross-country motorcycle trip with his older brother, undertaken as he debated pursuing an acting career. The brothers were stranded in a tiny shelter during six days of pouring rain, with limited rations and plenty of time to think.